The Aloe Flowers & Wicked Cute Puppy!

This post is accurately titled. You’re probably sick of this stupid aloe plant by now. Well guess what? This time there’s video! Someone asked me, “So you took a video … of a plant“? Yup. I know! It’s crazy, huh? What can I say?

Next week these flowers will be dripping a sticky sap.

OK. Enough with the flowers already. Where the hell is the video? It’s coming. I’m working on it. But first you have to see the CUTE PUPPY! She’s a wicked cute beagle puppy named Bella Grace.

My coworker in the college bookstore is now this puppy’s daddy!

Bella high-fives a human.

That was fun, huh?!

Ready for the big excitement? Video of a giant old houseplant. Oscar® nominated in the Best Screenplay About a Houseplant category. Not a winner. (“Not a winner. Not a winner.” What the lotto machine says when it scans my Megabucks tickets.) Of the Oscar® I mean. Have a look and see why:

Poor quality, low production values, no plot. If it were on TV I’d be waiting for the commercials. Interesting soundtrack though! All 21 seconds.

In conclusion, this post abruptly ends. At least it was accurately titled. Too bad there’s no Blog Oscar® for that. 🙂

Thanks maleesha. It was partly inspired by a recent post of yours which started with the line “I am a bad blogger lately …” and went on to goodness from there. I gotta go to there and leave a comment now …

Hot damn do you make plants look a little too appealing, if I’m to be honest. Nice dramatic camera work in the video. It was imax dizzying!

Seriously, it was cool to see the video and see just how tall that bad boy (or girl if aloe does have a gender) is.

Thanks B&G. The first take had the camera vertical, which made a sideways video. Take 2, the next day, gave me some time to think about the shot. And 15 seconds was enough.

The plant has produced seeds in the past, which I think may have germinated before they rotted under a pile of desktop detritus. That would make the plant hermaphrodite, if aloe are even dioecious. As I looked back to older posts I found that it flowered about a year ago, and then again a few months later, which was when it made the seeds. This post drew a comment from an aloe expert in Africa. She said that the seeds would probably not be fertile. Sorry for the TMI … 🙂

David — where have you gone!!?!?! Once the super collider failed it has been a giant spiral into plant worship!! OY VEY. I admit that plant is awesome and awe-inspiring, but, your video breaches the outer limits. Winter will soon be over and you can captivate us with tales of plantings! Until then — how about some unique squash recipes! I hate to disturb the force of your fan base. They certainly thought this post was some of your best work ??? OY! You know I am a true and loyal fan, but this time, man, you go too far.

Oh Carol, I have always worshiped the plants! Sorry, at least I warned you first. I don’t have any unique squash recipes. Which reminds me I ought to get down into the root cellar and pull out the rotten ones for the compost pile. We never seem to keep up on the squash eating. We’d have to eat it twice a week in order to use it up. The butternuts don’t keep as well as the buttercups. And the collider should be starting up soon, so stay tuned. 🙂

Don’t you know a puppy will upstage a plant every time? Even an awesomely weird plant like yours.

Yeah I knew that. I figured the phrase “cute puppy” in the title would draw a thousand hits a day. Also figured a lot of people could use that cute puppy feeling right about now. If readers get too cheered up, they can always ask their doctor about Despondex.

> Oscar® nominated in the Best
> Screenplay About a Houseplant
> category. Not a winner.

No so fast there, buddy. Everything on the planet gets mail from time to time that says “You could ALREADY be a winner…”

Yeah maybe I should be playing bingo instead of Megabucks. The yellow ticket machines taunt me from various locations. Not a winner. Not a winner. Which is to say LOSER! LOSER! However I buy the tickets every week, and pay my stupidity tax. 🙂 Someday, I will already be a winner! Not a loser not a loser not a loser … 😦 🙂

> Think Tucker’ll be jealous that another cute puppy is in his territory?

No. Tucker is not a petty puppy. Besides, Tucker wouldn’t know cute if it stepped on the business end of a rake and bopped him between the eyebrows. He is focussed always on *higher* things. Like the cheese in my right hand….

Sorry I have been away so long. I think there is somebody downloading films through my computer, mostly at night when this computer is always off.

So first I called my supplier’s departamento de atención al cliente, where people are trained in stonewalling anything you say. They gave me a new password, which did not work. Called again etc

And then decided to write! The same as a post (and unlike comments ) a letter of that kind can take me anything between 5 and 20 hours or more. Unlike most people I consider words as similar to numbers and a sentence as limited in variations as 2 + 3 + 4 = 9. I could also say that 4 + 3 + 2 = 9 or even 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 3 – 2 = 9, see? And maybe one of these would be more intelligible or shorter or more graphic and therefore more suited to some purpose, comprendes?

This problem began in fact a little more than a year ago, but it was dormant until recently. Problem is that if the computer is off at night, the downloads have to be made by accessing my cable and though I do not have any banking data on this computer, this strikes me as dangerous.

So I started to write a letter to be sent to the supplier. Yesterday evening I finished a draft. I gave it to my BFFLAA to see, and it has just come back with lots of question marks.

Basically in Spain, now, letters of this kind are pointless, but I have to do something! Also, a letter of this kind, just like a mathematical equation, is like a riddle and can keep me trying even while I sleep! I keep formulating and suddenly wake up, take a paper and write down the latest “wording” as the patent lawyers used to call it. (Maybe I should add that I used to work as a translator for a patent office where this formulating obsession of mine was a real asset and was paid accordingly).

I know you didn’t ask, but I cannot help myself. Maybe you’re being sarcastic in your first sentence? You DO know nobody can do anything at all with your computer when it’s turned off, don’t you? Your internet connection– is it through wires or is it wireless? Maybe I could help you with your letter. Not in Spanish of course. Email it to me in English if you like. This kind of crime is dangerous, as you say. There is an amusing name for it here: “wire fraud”.

Your obsession with wording is what has keeps me reading your blog, though I don’t often comment. Should I feel guilty about that? I think your precise word arrangement may also be why some of your commentary seems to invite debate. Or maybe you just like to contend. I also anguish over words when emailing at work, or trying to transfer my ridiculous concepts to non-believers. It’s simultaneously wonderful and frustrating how the simplest concepts can be so hard to put into words.

!!! Are you sure? My computer is connected by cable. The connection is on the facade of the building, outside. Upstairs lives an immigrant kid who studies computer engineering, and in general I am known here in the student community for all kinds of things I helped fill out or correct or REDACT, as the word is now.

Somebody could get access to that cable outside, couldn’t they? What I would like to know is whether the supplier could see that the downloads do not arrive at this IP.

Anyway, thank you muchísimo for your offer to help in the REDACTION of that letter. I do hope it won’t be necessary. It is above all useless because…..

I’m sure about your missing question marks, since your sentence about the puppy pictures began with the word ‘Why’.

It’s nice that you help students ‘redact’ their papers. 🙂 Here that word connotes the elimination of information rather than rearrangement or style edits. As in the release of formerly secret documents with heavy black cross-outs of ‘sensitive’ data …

On the possibility of theft of your internet service the information you provide is all cause for concern. Since the box is outside, I’ll infer that your internet connection comes through the same cables as your television signal. In this case, there should be a device inside your apartment, a cable modem, which hosts your internet connection. Is your computer connected to this device by a wire? Does this device have any little antennae on it? Sometimes these modems act as wireless access points as well.

It is certainly possible that a knowledgeable scoundrel could ‘hack’ in and ‘spoof’ your IP address. You might notice interruptions depending on whether the hacker was working while you’re connected, but it’s also possible that you might not notice anything at all. So if your internet service provider (ISP) has notified you that illegal downloading appears to be associated with your account, then replying to them via mail or email is really all you can do. I would include that you have a suspect: your young upstairs neighbor. It will be difficult to figure this out on your own. Do you speak to this young computer student?

If the ISP is concerned then it is their responsibility to investigate. They will be able to take the entire building into account. The box outside is unlikely to be accessible. The modem in each apartment is what enables the internet connection. I hope this is helpful.

Remember I told you that Spain had become rich overnight. Well, that has imploded.

However, already some time ago the justice system stopped working. The judges are years behind. So all minor matters lose their legal underpinning and thereby even their meaning (notice “underpinning!”).

So the point in writing to them is to get them to check the integrity of my line. Don’t you think they can do something in that regard?

Yes, I would think that your ISP would be happy to help you determine whether you are victim of theft of service, as we would call it. This combined with illegal downloading of copyrighted materials is a serious offense. Does anyone else in your building have similar complaints or suspicions?

You know how YouTube concludes each run with a selection of other videos it thinks are related? I thought you migh tbe interested in YouTube’s idea of videos probably related to the AloeVera flower porn: